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This week, the Justice Department moved to delay enforcement of rules the FDA finalized a year ago dealing with tobacco products like e-cigarettes, cigars and hookah tobacco. It’s been a busy time for big tobacco, as the victory came on the heels of a defeat for vaping (e-cigarette) companies: Sunday night’s omnibus budget bill reportedly did…

OpenSecrets Blog and The Trace partnered on this story; it was published by both outlets. In North Carolina, the NRA spent $6.2 million on the incumbent Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the most it has ever invested in a down-ballot race. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) The National Rifle Association took a historic gamble in 2016, and it paid…

When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare…

It’s been a month and a half since we last checked in on outside spending for the 2016 election. In that time, it’s grown by 50 percent — nearly $100 million dollars. By this time in 2012, outside spending was a third of what it is today, or $103,016,139. Since Feb. 12, the date of…

With the veteran Denver Broncos matching up against the youthful North Carolina Panthers at Super Bowl 50 this weekend, one story line is about the quarterback matchup: newly minted MVP Cam Newton versus Peyton Manning, a five-time winner of that honor who is rumored to be retiring after Sunday. Of course, it’s also all about…

Twenty-three corporations — including AT&T, Exxon Mobil, Kraft, Coca-Cola and Koch Industries — compose the ALEC’s “private enterprise board.” On the national level, these companies have been mustering a juggernaut of lobbyists to target congressional initiatives and donating extensively to a number of candidates.

In habitually partisan Washington, D.C., a bipartisan group of senators last week helped extend contentious federal tax provisions designed to aid domestic ethanol production. The senators mostly shared common ground on two fronts: geography and contributions from the political action committees of ethanol producers, high-profile ethanol promoters and the leading industry groups for corn, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.

Many federal candidates are receiving thousands of dollars from organizations on both sides of the abortion debate. And in this landscape, abortion rights groups are far out-spending groups opposed to abortion this election cycle.

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